In the News

"A Young Afghan Student Becomes A Target for the Taliban"
Paul Watson, Toronto Star
September 18, 2011
A 17-year-old student, Roya, recently suffered the tragedy of losing her father, who was killed as he fought a Taliban leader. Now, Roya and her family are themselves targets of the Taliban.

"Afghan Women Rally for Safer Streets"
NBC News, World Blog
July 14, 2011
A small, brave group of Afghan women broke tradition and marched through Kabul streets to protest the amount of harassment that women experience in the streets.

"I Can Tell You That We Are Bleeding in Our Hearts"
The Star.com
April 4, 2011
The director of the Afghan Canadian Community Center in Kandahar offers his thoughts on the recent violence in Afghanistan as a result of a Florida man burning a copy of the Koran.

Women Are Not Collateral Damage
The Seattle Times
April 3, 2011
Kathleen Parker
Women are what too many have come to accept as "collateral damage" in theaters of war, writes Kathleen Parker. But what if saving women from cultures that treat them as chattel was in our strategic and not just moral interest? Every nation that oppresses women is a failed and, therefore, dangerous nation.

The government of Afghanistan has recently introduced a bill that wrests control of women's shelters in Afghanistan from the local Afghan women's NGOs that have founded and run them, and transfers that control to the Ministry of Women's Affairs (MoWA). This bill could become the law of the land ANY DAY NOW.

If this bill becomes law:

Women and girls seeking shelter will be required to plead their case before an eight-member Government panel, including conservative members of the Supreme Court and Ministry of Justice. This panel will determine whether a woman needs to be in a shelter or should be sent to jail or returned to her home (and her abuser).

Women will have to undergo "forensic" exams (virginity tests) to determine whether they have had sex and therefore committed adultery. The tests are medically invalid.

Once admitted to a shelter, women will be forbidden to leave. Their shelter will become their prison.

To The Gatekeepers of Women’s Honor: an open letter from the Women of Afghanistan
Afghan Women's Network
February 15, 2011
The Afghan Women’s Network, an umbrella organization of Afghan women's organizations, activists and human rights defenders in Afghanistan, with membership of over 5,000 individual women and over 75 non-government organizations, opposes the government's attempts to destroy the few safe havens that exist for abused women by attempting to take control of private shelters run by nonprofit organizations. Please read this open letter to the government of Afghanistan and please take a moment to sign the petition posted above.